Experimental end-to-end demonstration of intersatellite absolute ranging for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a gravitational wave detector in space. It relies on a postprocessing technique named time-delay interferometry to suppress the overwhelming laser frequency noise by several orders of magnitude. This algorithm requires intersatellite-ranging monitors to provide information on spacecraft separations. To fulfill this requirement, we use on-ground observatories, optical sideband-sideband beatnotes, pseudorandom noise ranging (PRNR), and time-delay interferometric ranging (TDIR). This article reports on the experimental end-to-end demonstration of a hexagonal optical testbed used to extract absolute ranges via the optical sidebands, PRNR, and TDIR. These were applied for clock synchronization of optical beatnote signals sampled at independent phasemeters. We set up two possible PRNR processing schemes: Scheme 1 extracts pseudoranges from PRNR via a calibration relying on TDIR; Scheme 2 synchronizes all beatnote signals without TDIR calibration. The schemes rely on newly implemented monitors of local-PRNR biases. After the necessary PRNR treatments (unwrapping, ambiguity resolution, bias correction, in-band jitter reduction, and/or calibration), Schemes 1 and 2 achieved ranging accuracies of 2.0–8.1 cm and 5.8–41.1 cm, respectively, below the classical 1-m mark with margins. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Source: Physical Review Applied
Authors: Kohei Yamamoto, Iouri Bykov, Jan Niklas Reinhardt, Christoph Bode, Pascal Grafe, Martin Staab, Narjiss Messied, Myles Clark, Germán Fernández Barranco, Thomas S. Schwarze, Olaf Hartwig, Juan José Esteban Delgado, Gerhard Heinzel
Institutions: Leibniz University Hannover, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Université, Systèmes de Référence Temps-Espace, Laboratoire Temps Espace, University of Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Awards: G1308467778, G2362560521, G2623772490, SFB 1464: Relativistische und quantenbasierte Geodäsie (TerraQ), EXC 2122: PhoenixD: Photonics, Optics, and Engineering – Innovation Across Disciplines, G3200601016, G3371477847, G3532071201, G381753123, G3882494552, G4297686044, EXC 2123: QuantumFrontiers Licht und Materie an der Quantengrenze, G5552180772, G564235600, G6904081802, G7374037658, G745383156, G8042996224, G8503605409, G866082923
OpenAlex ID: W4404137345